These Colonial-era Bungalows In Tanglin Will House A New Lifestyle Hub

Managing a big plot of land with clusters of conserved buildings will not be a straightforward feat, and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has been very cautious with how such clusters of those historic areas are utilised.

SLA is a statutory board below the Ministry of Law, and it manages over 2,600 State-owned properties, together with black-and-white bungalows and heritage properties. Familiar clusters of those historic buildings which have been efficiently repositioned as life-style, arts, or F&B zones embody Dempsey Hill, Gillman Barracks, and Seletar Aerospace Park.

So it was a nice shock when SLA launched a price-quality tender for 33 heritage black-and-white colonial buildings on the former Phoenix Park in September 2025.

Located at 300-320 Tanglin Road, the 610,487 sq ft web site includes low-rise properties that had been initially constructed by the British colonial authorities in 1949 as properties for employees within the British Far East Command, the British High Commission.

After Singapore’s independence, the colonial buildings had been occupied by the Ministry of Home Affairs from 1977 to 2001. The web site was declared a historic web site by the National Heritage Board in 2012.

The September 2025 tender includes two 3-storey buildings, two 2-storey buildings, and 29 single-storey buildings. SLA estimates that the whole gross ground space (GFA) is roughly 119,338 sq ft. The web site additionally contains 150 floor automotive park tons and 17 motorbike tons.

The goal of the tender was to ask proposals that would reposition the historic web site as a brand new life-style vacation spot, similar to how Gillman Barracks and Dempsey Hill have reworked into vibrant areas.

When the tender launched in September 2025, SLA stated that it welcomed ideas that concerned co-working and co-living areas, in addition to artwork galleries. If realised, these choices would complement the positioning’s current accepted makes use of corresponding to industrial faculties, places of work, serviced flats and F&B institutions.

On April 17, SLA introduced that the positioning can be leased to TS Home for an preliminary time period of 5 years with the potential for a closing four-year time period.

Based on the tender, we assume that the idea proposed by TS Home was acceptable and shortlisted with different bids, earlier than they had been in contrast on their bid value. But it actually helped that TS Home additionally submitted the very best bid value of $404,888 monthly, which works out to an annual charge of over $4.85 million.

The different bidders had been:

TS Home is a unit below TS Group, a neighborhood agency recognized for working dormitories and lodging options. This will not be the primary time the corporate has participated in an SLA tender.

In 2024, along with The Assembly Place (TAP), it gained the bid for 98 Henderson Road – the previous Henderson Primary School. The former college campus has since been repositioned and launched as Commune on Henderson, an inter-generational co-living facility.

According to SLA, TS Home would be the web site’s grasp operator and can rejuvenate the positioning right into a multi-use compound, with plans to leverage the positioning’s expansive scale and greenery into the brand new idea.

TS Home plans to develop communal areas, with car-lite, pet-friendly, outside health and recreation areas. These plans may also incorporate the premises’ wealthy heritage, whereas wellness, residential, co-working, F&B, and retail choices can be built-in into the cluster.

If TS Home can efficiently implement its proposed idea, the rejuvenated web site can be a a lot wanted inventive and life-style vacation spot, which is sorely wanted to enhance the prevailing choice of retail, cultural, and life-style zones within the central space.

It can be doubtless that TS Home will collaborate with different companions, particularly if it intends to introduce co-living ideas and retail/F&B choices.

Recent tenders have proven that native operators are able to repositioning heritage properties into vibrant and significant locations. A latest case is Coliwoo’s rejuvenation of the previous Bukit Timah Fire Station on Upper Bukit Timah Road.

In April 2024, LHN Facilities Management, a unit of LHN Group, was awarded the positioning via an SLA tender at a month-to-month hire of $68,889. The web site is now a mixed-use improvement with co-living areas and community-centric choices.

It is nice to see State-owned properties being creatively positioned for the advantage of extra Singaporeans and residents. So far, SLA has repositioned many colleges – like the previous Serangoon Garden South School – and different colonial-era properties.

With a rising curiosity amongst locals for various housing choices, providing personal operators with these services to run co-living can be an excellent transfer to satisfy the evolving housing wants and calls for from youthful Singaporeans and residents.